Simple Truths of Life - стр. 6

Meanwhile, the time has come for a second grade. Our class teacher had changed. The young woman left, and now we had a rather strict woman, who was much older.

If in the first grade I actively and vigorously spoke in class, in the second one I already completely understood that I am different from all the other people because of my stumbling speech. I was uncomfortable. If I were asked to draw the time spent before the second grade, then I would use bright light colors, for example yellow, but the second grade is the first year when these colors turned into gray faded shades. The desk at which I was sitting changed too. The bright place at the window was replaced by a more darker one behind the second desk near the wall.

I remember clearly the moment when our teacher asked me to read aloud the text in the book. I was already fully aware that I was reading with constant speech stutters. My tongue refused to obey me, and I could not do anything about it – no matter how hard I tried. All the time that I was reading, I held the sheet of the book with my finger so that it would not close, and when my torment came to an end, I removed my finger from the page to find in its place a pronounced wet spot from sweat.

I began to be afraid to speak. In school, every time a teacher was about to ask someone to answer a question, my heart would begin to pound quickly. The pulse immediately calmed down if someone else was asked.

In the following school years, I began to worry about whether I would have to answer or not on the way to school.

Chatting with friends was also difficult for me. I remember clearly the moments when a friend or acquaintance was mistaken in some question, and I knew the exact answer to the topic being discussed, an answer that could help another person, but I was so afraid that I would stumble on one word that I just could not allow myself to open my mouth. I just stayed silent.

One such moment happened in the village during the summer holidays. I walked then with friends in the evening. We walked a long circle around the village, and our conversation touched on unexplained phenomena. My experience with the bright yellow entity was ideal for our conversation… If only I could force myself to overcome the fear of speaking. The thought of all the negative that could have happened if I had started to stutter blocked all desire to share my unusual experience.

In school years I once thought about the fact that I was speaking absolutely normally in my imagination, to myself, and also when I was alone and was talking aloud to myself – it was simply impossible to stutter. It is a pity that at that time I did not give much importance to my remark – after all, the solution was so close!